


Leave All Of My Regrets (To Sink Like Shipwrecks)

by authorette



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: F/F, Noah POV, tropes galore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-20 18:39:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18530854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/authorette/pseuds/authorette
Summary: After a fight with his mum and Vanessa, Noah makes a wish that he comes to regret when he wakes up in a world where nothing is quite right.





	Leave All Of My Regrets (To Sink Like Shipwrecks)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jmflowers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jmflowers/gifts).



> I started writing this quite a while ago and it’s been a bit of a struggle to finish because turns out writing in teenage boy POV is kind of hard! Thanks to jmflowers for the encouragement to finish and not abandon Noah in this wish world.
> 
> Word of warning: this is pretty dark in places. If you give it a go, I’d love to head your thoughts in the comments or over on tumblr where I am @authorette44.
> 
> CW: mention of sexual abuse, self destructive behaviours, and some violence.

Leave All Of My Regrets (To Sink Like Shipwrecks)

 

Noah slams the door behind him, even though he knows that there’s no point to that. No one is following him anyway. 

He can hear the faint rumbling of pub above him, busy with the early afternoon Saturday crowd. Families ordering pies and curries; older men nursing pints in the corner. And like she has been for the last few months, Vanessa, propping up the bar with a cup of tea while his mum works.

He slinks down the stairs and throws himself onto the ratty old chair.

He’s been hanging out down here more often recently. He got the idea from Bob, when it was revealed that he’d been staying down here at night. 

It’s peaceful here. Sometimes he comes down just to listen to some music, or read one of his comics. If he could figure out how to make the WiFi reach through the thick walls, he’d think about moving his PS4.

It’s impossible to get any time on his own at the moment. Moses and Johnny are obsessed with his room: the more they’re told it’s off limits, the more they want to go in. Play with him. Touch everything, move everything. He _hates_ that. 

And even when the boys leave him alone, his mum is coming in to nag him about homework and putting his clothes in the hampers and going to bed on time.

She never used to bother with stuff like that, and he knows it’s because of _her_. 

Vanessa. Who seems to determine what they have for dinner and when he can be home and what they’re doing at the weekend. And what his mum believes about him.

He crosses his arms, still annoyed. 

_“It wasn’t me!”_ , he’d said. _“I swear it wasn’t.”_

But then Vanessa had said _“Is that like you didn’t let the animals out of their cages that day?”_ , and his mum had fixed him with a glare and that was his guilt determined.

_“Vanessa’s suspension is about to be up,”_ , she’d yelled, _“so this isn’t funny, Noah. Stuff like this can cost her reinstatement.”_

No matter that he’d told her he hadn’t done it. 

There used to be a time when she’d just be on his side, no matter what. 

Not anymore.

Now, when he goes over to the vets like he’s told, to bring Vanessa her stupid lunch that she’s forgotten, he gets accused of stealing a tranquilliser gun.

He turns onto his side, scowling to try and keep his eyes dry. He’s not going to cry like a baby because his mummy didn’t believe him. 

Not like he didn’t know already where he stands with her. Not after everything that’s been happening. Looking at two bedroom houses. Forgetting to tell him that she got _engaged_. 

And then his birthday this week. When Noah thinks of how much effort Jacob’s family went to for his party, and then compared it to what he got, he feels that hollow pit in his stomach ache. A sloppy cake Vanessa had clearly made, and everyone gathering in the room for five minutes to sing off-key.

Joe would have put on a great party for him. Whatever food he wanted. Maybe even some sneaky booze, and not the cheap crap he’d nicked from the cellar to take to Jacob’s.

But then, Joe ditched him too.

He wishes that he could go back, to when it was just him and his mum. Before Joe who obviously didn’t give a shit about him. Before Vanessa Woodfield invaded every part of his life and drove a wedge between him and his mum. 

He realises suddenly that this is where it began. He’s heard the story when his mum was telling Ryan, months after the fact. Not like she actually told Noah when they started dating. He’s always last to know things, after all.

Locked in the cellar together. Doesn’t sound particularly romantic, to him. If that lock hadn’t been broken, then this wouldn’t have happened. 

His mum wouldn’t have yelled at him. She would have believed him. He’d have his peace and quiet. His morning tea would taste like something other than milk.

His mum might actually remember he exists.

He closes his eyes, suddenly tired. “I wish that the lock hadn’t been broken that day,” he mumbles, half nodded off already.

*** 

The first thing he notices is that he’s woken up naturally. No alarm. No kids bouncing on the bed. No mum, ripping the curtains open to wake him up. No Vanessa, knocking incessantly, shouting about breakfast.

The second thing he notices is that it’s quiet. Quieter than he can remember in a long time.

They’ve probably all gone out and forgotten about him. 

He sighs and slips out of bed. Hopefully they’ll at least have left his breakfast. Although, maybe not getting woken for the family Sunday breakfast is his punishment for what they think he’s done.

He pauses for a second. He can’t remember coming up to bed, so it must have been pretty late. Maybe he woke them and that’s why there annoyed?

Oh well. He shrugs on a hoodie. So he doesn’t get weird animal shaped pancakes from Vanessa. Who cares. He’ll have some of his birthday cake for breakfast and enjoy the peace and quiet with his PlayStation.

He slouches down the stairs, and pauses. 

The curtains are still drawn. That’s usually the first thing Vanessa does in the mornings: throw open the curtains before she pulls out the mixing bowl.

Maybe they’re not up yet after all? But he pulls his phone out of his pocket, and it’s almost eleven. He’s usually lucky to get a lie in until nine on a Sunday. 

He steps over to the window and throws open the curtain, and then jumps at a loud groan from behind him.

He whips around and sees his mum, curled up on the sofa, struggling upright and covering her eyes from the bright light. And then he takes in the empty wine bottle lying on the floor next to her. No glasses on the coffee table though, so she’s been drinking alone, straight out of the bottle.

That hasn’t happened in a while.

Cold wells in his chest; something must be wrong. 

“For gods sake, close the curtain babe,” his mum croaks. “My head is killing me.”

“Are you ok?” he asks.

“She’s got a severe case of lazy-itis,” Victoria says from the door to the front which she’s just come in from. “And let me guess. It’s a day ending in a Y, so probably a hangover as well.”

Noah stares at her. Victoria’s been a bit down recently, ever since her split with Ellis, but he didn’t realise her and his mum weren’t getting on. As far as he knows, his mum’s actually been doing her share of shifts, probably because Vanessa’s been hanging about to keep her company. It’s a wonder she gets any work done at the vets, with the amount of time she spends gawping at his mum while she’s working.

“Do us all a favour and go batter some fish or something,” his mum groans.

“We open in half an hour,” Victoria snaps. “So how about you try and get out there for your shift for once.”

Noah raises his eyebrow; his mum isn’t going to stand for that tone from anyone, he knows that from experience.

But to his total shock, his mum just lets out a moan and slips back into the cushions, and Victoria throws her hands up and storms out.

Noah bites his lip. “Why are you down here, mum?”

His mum just grunts. “Make us a brew, would you?” she mutters.

Still confused, Noah walks to the kitchen and flips on the kettle.

Something’s different, he realises as he takes the milk out of the fridge.

For one, the fridge is pretty much empty. And then he notices the other thing.

There’s no pictures featuring blobs and stick figures. All of Moses’ and Johnny’s art is gone. So is the fridge magnet they got in Ireland last summer, the one with the leprechaun waving a shamrock.

“What happened to the fridge?” he asks.

“If you’re hungry, get Victoria to make you something,” his mum whines. “Now let me sleep, yeah babe? My head is killing me.”

They must have had a fight. He hasn’t seen his mum like this in months, not since the whole trial with Bails.

“Where’s Vanessa?” he asks reluctantly, because she’s one of the only people who his mum will listen to when she gets like this. “What happened?”

But when he round the corner and sets her brew down, she’s already fast asleep.

Sighing, he makes his way up the stairs to the surprisingly quiet first floor. Normally he can hear the boys a mile off, playing their imaginary games at full volume.

But it’s silent, and when he peeks into Moses’ room, it’s empty. And tidy. Surprisingly tidy. Normally there’s elaborate set ups for whatever world him and Johnny are creating that day. But all the toys are neatly put away and there’s no clothes lying about anywhere.

He crosses the landing and peaks into his mum’s room, but it’s empty too. Vanessa must have taken the boys out somewhere. 

Just to make double sure, he heads to Johnny’s room, but stops suddenly. Chas, looking like she hasn’t washed or slept in days, is heading to the door of Johnny’s room. Her hair is flat and tangled; her clothes are stained. And she’s got that dead look in her eyes, the look she had just after the thing with Grace happened.

He knows that Vanessa was reluctant at first, to take over Grace’s space for Johnny. He remembers the debates the two of them had over whether or not it was ok to paper over the soft purple with the dinosaur wallpaper Johnny wanted.

But Chas, once she’d made up her mind, had been adamant. Had even helped him and Vanessa put up the wallpaper.

He hasn’t seen her in the room, since Johnny’s stuff moved into it. But clearly that doesn’t mean she hasn’t been going in. 

He backs away. He doesn’t know where Paddy is, but Noah’s never been very good with crying girls or women; at parties, when that inevitably starts, he gives them a wide berth. Better to just leave her to it. Vanessa and the boys will turn up at some point, like they always do.

Instead, he heads to his bedroom and grabs his headphones, reaching over to turn on his PlayStation. And then he notices the game. _Red Dead Redemption 2_. 

He’d asked for it for his birthday, but Vanessa actually reads reviews of things before she buys them and told his mum it was an 18 and too violent, and his mum had agreed. 

Looks like she changed her mind though. 

Grinning, he shoves the disk into the console and lets his mind drift.

*** 

He doesn’t come up for air for hours, until his stomach is rumbling and he realises that no one has called him down for Sunday lunch. 

That’s a thing they do now, most Sundays. If his mum is working, Vanessa will make her up a plate and bring it through to her. 

The boys love helping to make the Yorkshire puddings, and the kitchen is usually covered in flour.

He pads down the stairs, and notices that his mum has gone from the sofa. Her blanket is still rolled up in a ball though, and the wine bottle is still on the floor. The curtains have been cracked open just enough to let in a sliver of the winter sunshine outside.

No trace of any of the pub’s other inhabitants.

Curious now, and with a weird feeling in his belly, he wanders through to the pub.

It’s pretty dead for a Sunday. Normally by now, there’s a good crowd on, but it’s dead quiet. He sees Frank and Megan in the corner, and pauses for a moment because he had no idea they were back together. 

Matty is serving behind the bar. “Have you seen my mum?” he asks. 

Matty rolls his eyes. “She staggered through about an hour ago. Not like we can expect her to actually do a shift, is it?”

Noah starts a little. He used to hear people talking like that all the time, but his mum has been pretty good about work recently, so that seems a little uncalled for.

Although to be fair, she had been in a right state earlier. 

“Have you seen Vanessa?” he asks reluctantly. It’s weird, that he hasn’t seen her all day. Normally he can’t move for finding her about the place, pottering with the laundry or nagging on about something or other.

Matty stares at him. “Vanessa…?”

Noah frowns. “About this tall.” He holds his arm barely above the ground. “Blonde. Gobby. Can’t keep her nose out?”

Matty tilts his head. “Why are you asking about Vanessa Woodfield?”

To be fair, Noah doesn’t usually give a shit about where she is, so he supposes he can understand the confusion. “Just haven’t seen her about today.”

Matty shakes his head. “You Dingles are so weird. She’s not been in.”

Huh. That’s definitely odd. Unless she’s taken the boys somewhere?

But his mum, drunk on the sofa, sticks with him.

Something dark and unsettling spreads in his belly. But that can’t be right. 

His mum and Vanessa are nauseatingly loved up. The whole time they were yelling at him, his mum had one arm around Vanessa’s waist. 

They’re basically joined at the hip – Vanessa’s always in the pub, or they’re curled up on the sofa.

And they bicker, but they don’t really fight. Not the way he’s heard his mum fight with others before. One of the things that annoys him most is that his mum seems to agree with pretty much everything Vanessa says, especially since she’s come out of the hospital.

He walks through the pub and out of the door. He’ll find them at the park, all happy together without him as per usual, he’s sure of it. Or they’ll have gone to the cinema and forgotten to invite him. Or for lunch. Or to the café.

He steps onto the street and wanders vaguely towards the park, passing the shop. But he stops, when he sees Tracy moving the sign outside, and then David coming up and leaning in for a kiss. In broad daylight.

And no one seems to blink an eye, not even Tracy, who he has discovered is even gobbier than most of the Dingles.

He actually quite likes Tracy; she’s fun and a bit silly, and nothing like her dry, boring sister.

He doesn’t think she’d put up with something like that if she didn’t want it.

Maybe that’s been going on for a while, and Jacob just hasn’t told him? But he was only just at that party, and that weird history teacher was still skulking about.

He walks on, and then suddenly stops short again, because Vanessa pulls up across the road, ushering Johnny out of the car and towards Tug Ghyll, but Moses is nowhere to be seen. And Johnny looks at him and then past him, without a hint of his usual enthusiasm. 

Vanessa pulls a key out of her pocket, like it’s normal and she hasn’t been spreading out in the pub like mould for the past two months, and they go in. He notices they’re carrying shopping bags. Maybe someone in Tug Ghyll is sick? Maybe she’s there to comfort that weird Ms Stepney over her and David’s breakup?

But even as he thinks it, he knows, somehow, that that isn’t true. 

Without thinking too hard about it, he marches straight up to Tug Ghyll and pounds on the door.

Vanessa opens, a little out of breath, and stares at him in confusion. “Yes?”

Except she doesn’t say it the way she does when he asks her if she’s about later, because he needs a lift to footie practice, or the way she does when Moses wants to ask for another episode of whatever they’re watching instead of bed time. 

She says it like he’s a stranger, like they don’t see each other in pyjamas and don’t pass each other at night in and out of the bathroom.

“Noah, right?” she says, smiling hesitantly. “Can I help you?”

Behind her hangs a picture he’s familiar with. It’s Vanessa and baby Johnny, sitting in that horrendous armchair that his mum had made Vanessa leave behind. He took that down himself when his mum made him help move Vanessa’s things over. 

And now it’s back on the wall like it never left, and Vanessa is looking at him like he’s a stranger.

He turns around, and runs.

*** 

He runs all the way back to the pub, through the back door and up the stairs to his mum’s room. He throws the door open and steps inside.

Vanessa’s bedside table no longer has the Kindle his mum got her for Christmas, or the picture of her and his mum that Tracy took of them on New Years Eve. In fact, all the pictures Vanessa had carefully selected and framed and then made Noah hang because she was too short are gone from the walls. The group pyjama picture at Christmas. The one of them all at Marlon’s wedding. Even the one of Vanessa and Frank and Tracy that she had propped up on her side of the dresser is gone.

So are the little bottles he’d noticed had appeared on top of the vanity table, the brands he knows his mum has never used.

No. This can’t be true. 

He walks over to the drawers he watched his mum empty for Vanessa’s knitwear and pulls it open. 

It’s stuffed full with his mum’s clothes, clothes he _knows_ she donated to Cancer Research before Christmas. 

He peeks into the en-suite and sees a single toothbrush in the cup. A manual one, not the electric ones Vanessa bought them all after she’d read an article about their benefits while she was holed up in the hospital.

His head hurts and he feels a little sick, because what is _happening_?

He leaves his mum’s room and heads to Johnny’s room, but even before he opens the door he knows what he’ll find. 

Because the name ‘Grace’ is still stencilled on the door, and when it swings open the purple walls are revealed, the ones he’d carefully helped Vanessa paper over. And the small bed they’d dismantled in Tug Ghyll and reassembled here, and the chest of toys and the collection of Paw Patrol stuffed animals, and the Thomas the Tank Engine rug. All gone.

He turns frantically, looking at he pictures on the wall, but they’re different too. The ones of Chas and Paddy at either side of their door are gone. The one of his mum and Vanessa and the boys and Ryan and him from New Years, gone. The one of him and Sarah and Jack from when Sarah came home after her operation, gone. 

Stumbling a little, mind spinning, he heads downstairs, to the still-too-quiet living room, which he now realises is devoid of the toys he’s become accustomed to tripping over and the yellow blanket Vanessa cuddled up under when she spent most of her days recovering on the sofa and his mum made him supervise whenever she had to pop to the shops, is gone. 

No fruit in the bowl on the table, no star chart on the side of the fridge.

This must be a dream. A really weird, really realistic dream.

He heads through to the pub, and sees his mum behind the bar, nursing a glass with amber liquid. 

She doesn’t normally drink while working anymore, but that’s not the weirdest thing about what he sees. 

Because right there, in the middle of his mum’s pub, sitting with David and Tracy and laughing and drinking and nibbling at a bowl of chips like he doesn’t have a care in the world, is a face he recognises. A face he’s seen in the papers and on TV and in nightmares where his mum was crying and he couldn’t get to her and that man stood between them.

He’s supposed to be in prison. He got thirty years. He knows, because Vanessa called to tell him, even though he was in school and she knows they’re not allowed to use phones outside of break time. But he’d made her promise and she’d called him, voice shaking and thick like she’d been crying.

Thirty years, for what he did. And now, instead, he’s right here in the pub, like he’s a regular punter, like he belongs. 

He whips around to look at his mum, who’s watching Bails with dark eyes. 

But she’s not crying, or angry. She looks…she looks kind of hollow, like an echo of herself. 

“Mum,” he says, and she turns to him, but he can see in her eyes she’s not really listening, not really there.

“Tell Victoria I’ve got a headache and to cover the bar, yeah?” she says softly, and walks past him, snagging a bottle of whisky from the side as she passes. 

Noah clenches his first. He wants to go over there and punch Bails in the face. He wants to slam his fist into his nose, over and over again, feel it break under his hand.

He wants to make him feel it, feel what he’s done to their family. He wishes-

And then it comes to him, so hard that he staggers.

He made a wish, last night. 

“No, no, no!” He stumbles back, through the door and down to the cellar.

It looks the same: the boxes of crisps and peanuts, the rows and rows of mixers, the barrels in the corner. And the seat over to the side, looking all innocent and not like he sat in it and changed the whole world.

“I didn’t mean it,” he says out loud. “I didn’t mean _this_.” All he’d wanted was for Vanessa to back off a bit. For his mum to take his side for once. For them to notice him. 

“I get it!” He grumps. “Ok? Vanessa’s great, blah blah, everything is terrible without her. You’ve made your point, alright? Now put it back!”

He looks around, but nothing change. 

“I wish the lock _had_ been broken that night!” he practically shouts.

Silence.

He kicks the chair and then curses as his toe burns.

“What do you want from me?” He shouts, but the chair doesn’t answer.

Fine. Everything seemed to go wrong last night when he was asleep, so he decides to go to bed. And then everything will fix itself.

He tries to come up with a convincing lie about why he’s going to bed at six o’clock at night, but when he gets up to the back room, no one is there to question him.

He runs upstairs and throws himself into bed, willing sleep to come quickly and this awful day to end.

*** 

He gets up the next morning, hops in the shower at his designated time, all the while listening for the sounds of Vanessa and his mum trying to navigate getting the boys up. They’re slowly getting into a rhythm but Moses especially is easily distracted and it usually demands an elaborate tag team exercise of one of them hopping in the shower while the other tries to wrestle at least one of the boys into clothes.

He tries not to panic when he hears no tell-tale giggling, or Vanessa using her ‘strict’ voice. Just an echoing silence in a house which is normally bursting from the seams with sound.

He pulls on his shirt, his tie, his jumper, takes a deep breath and thumps down the stairs. 

_Like a herd of of cattle,_ Vanessa always says, and he always rolls his eyes.

But Vanessa isn’t in the kitchen, pouring orange juice or making milky brews or handing out cereal bowls.

And his mum isn’t sitting beside her with wet hair and a big smile and a hand perpetually on Vanessa’s hip. 

Instead, his mum is slumped on the sofa again, the half-empty whisky bottle still clutched in her hand.

His stomach drops and he realises it wasn’t a dream. He’s still stuck here, in this world where nothing is right.

“Mum!” he says loudly, angrily. 

She starts upright, eyes bleary and face pasty. “What?!” 

He stares at her, trying to understand what happened. Surely, _surely_ , Vanessa Woodfield isn’t the only bloody thing standing between his mum and this wreck of a woman. 

Sure, she’s never been reliable, particularly, or the way the other mums have been, but he refuses to believe that without Vanessa, this would be it. She has Moses, and Debbie, and him even. And Ryan now.

“Where’s Moses?” he says pointedly. Someone should probably feed the poor kid.

His mum just groans. “Not this again, Noah. I’ve had this conversation about a million times with Debbie already, ok? I don’t need this from you as well. He’s better off with Ross and you know it. He wanted to go.”

He feels sick, suddenly, his hunger for breakfast gone. “You just let him go?”

His mum sighs tiredly, and Noah clenches his fists hard. 

He’d known, from Ryan, that Ross and Rebecca had wanted to take Moses. He’d found out after the fact, after his mum apparently had a massive show down with Ross, and as per usual, no one had thought to tell Noah anything. Not like they’d think he would care if he lost yet another brother.

But here, in this world, she just let him go. Like she let Noah go to Home Farm. She doesn’t care.

“What are you wearing?” his mum asks him confusedly, and he looks down at himself.

“My uniform?”

“I know I’m hungover, but I’m pretty sure the two weeks aren’t up yet,” she tells him. 

He must look as confused as he feels because his mum rolls her eyes.

“Your suspension?”

“Right.” He pauses. He hadn’t thought, somehow, that things would be different for him, without Vanessa in their life. That no matter how hard he tried to keep her out of it, she touched his life too.

Well. Suspension wasn’t too bad last time, even though Vanessa was a proper little slave driver. 

And his mum had been on his side, at least sort of. She’d punched Marlon, and had barred Jesse from the pub for a while. 

“Look, babe, my head is killing me, so why don’t you go up to your room and leave us to some peace and quiet, yeah?”

Noah hesitates for a moment. He wants to say something, something about Moses or Bails or the whisky, but he doesn’t have the words, and his mum’s eyes are already closing, so he shuffles back upstairs, digging his nails so hard into his palms that they leave little moon shaped red indents for hours.

*** 

A couple of hours later, he hears sounds downstairs, and he sneaks out of his room where he’s been lying on his bed, trying to think this through. 

He pauses on the stairs, listening to Debbie’s voice mixed with his mother’s sounding hollowly through the thin walls.

“…drinking all night again, mother?”

“Were you such a nag with Joe? Cause then it’s no mystery why he left, babe.”

“I don’t know why I bother!”

Debbie’s voice is closer to the door now and Noah ducks down quickly. 

“You’re so selfish. I don’t know why I thought you could ever change. You’re never there for me, and you haven’t been there for Sarah-“

“Err, I came to the hospital and you didn’t let me in!”

“You were ten sheets to the wind!” 

There’s a pause for a moment.

“Look,” Debbie says softly, and Noah has to lean over the banister to listen. “I know having that Bails guy back around has been hard.”

“ _Don’t talk about him!_.” He’s never heard his mum use that tone before. Wounded and angry and sharp, like she might break at any moment and take all of them with her.

“You can’t go on like this. You’re drinking yourself silly every night, and we need you. I need you, Sarah needs you. Chas needs you. When was the last time you saw Moses?”

“What about what _I_ need?” his mum shouts, and she’s slurring a little. “What about me?”

“It’s always about you, isn’t it?” Debbie’s voice moves closer, and this time she opens the door and steps into the hall, and starts to see him.

“What’re you doing here?”

“Suspended,” he mutters, and notes she doesn’t seem remotely surprised.

She heads to the door, and he scrambles after her. “Debbie,” he begins, but she whirls around, angry eyes and pursed lips.

“For the millionth time, Noah,” she snaps, “no, I don’t know where Joe is. No, I don’t know why he conned us for months or why he lied to you and to me and to my kids. Now will you _stop bloody asking me!_ ”

She stalks off, and he closes the door behind her. 

Joe’s still gone. Debbie and his mum are back in that push-and-pull, fighting-and-secret-talks place he can’t penetrate. 

And he’s still on the outside, alone. 

*** 

He stews in his room for a while (and yeah, ok, so he plays some video games as well because there has to be _some_ benefit to all of this) and doesn’t emerge until it’s almost dinner time and he’s starving.

He reverts back to what he used to do, before ‘family dinner’ became a thing and he was forced every night to sit and watch Vanessa try and get vegetables down them all. He heads to the kitchen and looks pitiful until Marlon agrees to make him a burger.

He eats it in the corner, watching quietly as the punters drift by.

Some stuff seems the same. Matty and Victoria are giggling by the bar. Bernice and Leanna’s dad are being gross and loved up in one of the booths. 

But so much is different, too. There’s no Paddy. Noah has scoured the house for a sign of him, but it seems like he’s moved out. Belle, who has been hanging out at the pub pretty much on a daily basis since the stabbing isn’t anywhere to be seen. Rhona, who’s pretty much been glued to her usual table with Vanessa since she moved in, isn’t here.

He hasn’t realised how much things had changed, how much he’s got used to, until everything was slightly different.

His mum comes through, looking tired and worn, and he watches her and Victoria snipe at each other before his mum picks up the basket for collecting glasses and wanders outside.

“It’s March, Charity, I don’t think there’ll be much to do out there!” Victoria shouts after her sarcastically, but his mum ignores her.

It’s all wrong. He just doesn’t understand, how it is that one annoying, bossy, gobby woman can change _so much_ by just being around. 

Why does his mum need her so much? What is it about Vanessa that changed all of this?

They seem dead boring to him. All they do is bicker and lie on the sofa holding hands, and take the little ones places, and sit at the bar together while his mum works and Vanessa has tea or a pint. It’s not exactly life changing stuff.

And yeah, he knows of course that there’s other stuff. Stuff he tries very hard not to hear or know about, stuff that his mum bought him Beats headphones for Christmas to drown out. But surely it can’t be _that_ good?

He doesn’t really want to think about that, so he quickly eats another chip, and then looks up to see Vanessa coming in. She’s with Rhona, and the sight of them together, in here, is so normal after a day where everything has been wrong, that he almost sighs.

But then he realises that things aren’t quite right, after all, because they’re arguing. And not in the ‘you’ve just been stabbed so will you just bloody let me help you to the bathroom’ way. The proper way, where Vanessa looks furious.

“It’s none of your business!” she tells Rhona. “And you were the one who said I should put myself out there.”

“I didn’t mean like this!” Rhona sighs. “Look, I’m not judging-“

“Sounds kind of like judging to me,” Vanessa snaps. “You know what, I don’t need this from you. You wouldn’t understand anyway.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Rhona asks.

“Not like you’ve have much time for me since you and Pete got together.”

“Ness!” Rhona says, but Vanessa has stood up and is heading to the door.

On impulse, Noah follows. He dips out of the back door and heads around the side of the pub until he can see the front, staying hidden, and watches Vanessa with her head back, looking at the sky and letting out a deep breath.

“What’s got you all huffy?” Noah and Vanessa both start when his mum rounds the other corner, throwing her cigarette to the ground. 

His eyes widen; he hasn’t seen her smoking in years, not since before she went to prison.

Vanessa sighs again, softer this time. “Just people sticking their noses in.”

His mum holds her hands up defensively. “Sorry I asked.”

Vanessa shakes her head. “Didn’t mean you.” She makes as if to walk off, and then seems to think of something and turns back. “Hey, Charity?”

His mum turns around from where she’s almost reached the pub door. “Yeah?”

“Yesterday…” Vanessa tucks her hair behind her ear where it’s fallen out of her ponytail. “Noah, he came by my house.”

“What?” His mum stares at her.

“Yeah, he knocked, and he seemed upset about something? And when I asked him, he just ran off.”

His mum shakes her head. “Probably some prank.”

Vanessa shakes her head. “Didn’t seem like it?”

His mum scoffs. “Trust me, he’s been doing nothing but messing around recently.”

Vanessa shrugs. “Hey, I meant to ask, how’s Moses getting on? Johnny really misses him at nursery.”

His mum stares at Vanessa, like she’s confused why they’re speaking. And Noah realises, suddenly, that he hasn’t really seen anyone speak to his mum since he woke up in this weird world, other than Debbie who just yelled at her for a bit.

“Yeah, he’s fine. Loving his new nursery.”

Vanessa nods and takes a step forward. “Next time he’s up, if you fancy a play date, let me know, yeah?” She gives a small smile. “Although you probably want him all to yourself.”

“No, that sounds good.” His mum has the hesitant, suspicious voice that she usually gives him when he agrees to look after the boys. But he’s never heard it towards Vanessa.

It’s so strange, to see them in this dynamic where they’re practically strangers. 

“Right, I’d better get going.”

“Hot date?” His mum wiggles her eyebrows and he feels slightly ill, and then even more so when Vanessa looks slightly uncomfortable.

“Ahh, one of your one night conquests, eh?” His mum leans forward.

“What?” Vanessa’s voice has gone hard.

“Nothing to be ashamed of, babe. We all have needs. Not like I can judge.” She grins lecherously. “And no need to be coy. Not like half the village hasn’t noticed those blokes coming and going from your place.”

Vanessa steps back, looking embarrassed and angry. “I don’t know why I bother trying to talk to you. All you ever do is take the mick .”

His mum’s smile turns harsh and sharp. “Well why don’t you just do what everyone else does and stop trying to talk to me then?”

Vanessa rolls her eyes and walks away, and his mum’s shoulders drop and she slumps back into the pub. 

Noah takes deep, gulping breaths. Vanessa has someone else? Multiple others?

He didn’t think that that was a possibility, somehow. When he’d been lying on his bed, thinking through what might be true in this world, he’d figured his mum might have some rich fella, or that _she_ might be he one to revert to the pattern of one night stands. 

He didn’t think this could be true, though. He doesn’t really remember much about Vanessa much from _before_. She was in the pub occasionally, background to his loud, messy life. One year, when his mum was in prison, they had Christmas with Vanessa. But even then they didn’t speak much.

He certainly doesn’t remember rumours like this, about _men_ coming and going. And Jacob was usually pretty reliable about village gossip of that sort. 

And anyway, he though Vanessa liked girls. 

He knows, of course, about Kirin. Got some right stupid jokes about that from Leanna when she heard that story. About how Vanessa’s a cougar and he’d better lock his door at night.

But everything about her, about the way she is with his mum, she just seems so…gay. When they watch TV she’s always going on about which women she thinks are fit. And his mum’s always teasing her about how she really should have known that she was into women when she thinks he can’t hear.

He knows, of course, that you don’t need to pick either way, blah blah, his mum had that chat with him in her typical brash way years back. But something about Vanessa and a string of men just seems wrong. If anything he might have thought she might have a girlfriend. 

But that’s worse somehow, when he imagines it. Vanessa and another woman, and Johnny, all together like a happy family. A _normal_ family. Without all the Dingle drama, which to her credit Vanessa seems to have handled pretty well so far.

Suddenly, the only thought worse than Vanessa being everywhere all the time is the thought of her with another family, without them, and he feels hot, sick anger well in him. 

He hides behind the bins, the ones that have been replaced in the real world because they were all charred, and watches Tug Ghyll, heart in his throat, until a taxi pulls up and a tall man with a smart jacket gets out and knocks on the door.

Vanessa opens the door, and she’s taken her hair down and put on makeup, more than she normally wears even when her and his mum are going on a date, and she pulls him inside with a finger to her lips.

He swallows hard, his mouth suddenly dry and his eyes stinging from the cold.

Well. Fuck her, then.

The rational part of his brain knows it’s not fair, to blame her, but he does. He blames her for all of it. For this whole mess. If she’d just believed him then none of this would even have happened.

But it’s clear she doesn’t really care about him. She might like his mum, and Moses, and Ryan and Debbie, and yeah, at the start she was trying with him, but he knows that that was just for his mum’s sake. 

None of them ever bother with him, long term. He’s just the human obstacle between his mum and her flavour of the month.

He can’t be bothered with this. 

“What’re you doing behind there, weirdo?” 

He turns round and sees Leanna, holding up a bottle of clear liquid. 

“Nothin’.” He’s hesitant; he has no idea how things are with them in this universe.

“You coming then or what?” she she asks, tilting her head towards the playground.

He hesitates. He knows he shouldn’t. He should go home. Try to speak to his mum. Try to figure this out. “Mum will be looking for me.”

Leanna laughs. “Your mum? Fat chance of that.”

She says it so casually, like it’s a fact everyone knows. Like she doesn’t expect anything else. 

People used to say stuff like that all the time. Cain especially. 

But recently all everyone seems to want to say is that she’s trying. That he should give her a chance. Mostly it’s Vanessa saying that, but it’s what he’s gotten used to hearing.

Apparently not in this world, where his mum stumbles through the day like she’s in a trance, where Moses is gone and where he and his mum don’t talk at all. 

“Lead the way,” he says, and follows her into the darkness.

*** 

Noah’s been hungover before, after Jacob’s party. 

Vanessa had given him disapproving looks but to her credit she hadn’t ratted him out and passed him two paracetamol and a pint of water together with a bacon butty when he finally rolled out of bed.

But this morning, there’s no paracetamol or bacon. Just him, heaving over the toilet bowl, and then sinking back into bed with a pounding headache.

He doesn’t know how his mum can do this every day. 

It didn’t even help. For a few moments, maybe, he felt better, forgetting everything. But then he just felt sad again later, and worse somehow too. 

And now he feels like his head is going to explode. Why would she do this to herself on a daily basis?!

He lies there for some time more, dozing painfully, until the room stops spinning slightly, and then hobbles down the stairs.

And comes face to face with his mother. 

“The dead have risen, I see,” she says, raising her eyebrows.

“Look who’s talking,” he scoffs. He can tell by her deflated hair and her rumpled shirt that she spent another night collapsed on the sofa.

“Yeah, well, I’m not fourteen though, am I?”

“I’m fifteen.” He rolls his eyes. “Not that I’m surprised you forgot my birthday.”

His mum rolls her eyes. “Oh, come off it with the woe is me routine, babe. It’s getting a bit old.”

“When is the last time you actually paid any attention to me?” he spits out, before he can keep it in. 

“Well, I’m sorry that I can’t shower you in gifts like Lord Tate did!” she shouts. “And as for your birthday, did you or did you not say that you didn’t want me to bother because anything I did would be rubbish anyway?”

He wants to deny it, to shout that it’s all her fault, but the thing is, he doesn’t know that that’s true in this world. “You don’t care about me,” he says instead, even as his stomach cramps in anger and regret as soon as the words leave his mouth. “You never want to spend any time with me. And you just let Moses go to Liverpool.”

“I’m sorry, was it or was it not you who decided to move out and into Home Farm last year? Was it or was it not you who decided you’d had enough of me? Only to come crawling back when Lord Fancy Pants ran off and left you here.”

Noah feels his eyes sting and he clenches his fist. “You didn’t want me to see him! He’s my brother!”

“He tried to destroy our lives!” His mum shakes her head, and her voice is shrill, the way it gets when she’s close to losing it. 

Noah rolls his eyes. “You never listen to me. Don’t you get why I wanted to get to know him? He cares about me!”

His mum shakes her head. “He cares about no one but himself. Look at what he did to Debbie.” She lets out a little scoff. “You know, just because someone is related to you doesn’t mean they’re a good person, or that they’re worth getting to know. Been plenty of disappointing Dingles over the years, hasn’t there?”

Noah can’t believe what he’s hearing. “I can’t believe you’re saying that after what happened with Ryan!”

His mum stares at him. “Who the hell is Ryan?”

He freezes. It hadn’t even occurred to him. That his mum discovered Ryan in the course of the investigation into Bails. That in this world, she hadn’t found him.

Noah had a hard time with Ryan at first. He hadn’t wanted anything to do with the trial, or with Ryan. Hadn’t wanted to even think about it. But Joe talked to him, saying he should give him a chance. And Vanessa nagged on about it as well. Kept hosting ‘family dinners’ at Tug Ghyll, until she moved in and relocated them to the pub. 

And he actually quite likes Ryan. He’s a bit weird, but his sense of humour is pretty decent and they like a lot of the same PS4 games. He’s been pretty sure Ryan might sneakily get him that game he’s been after without telling Vanessa. 

The panic hits him again, the fear that things might be stuck like this. What if he’s made it so Ryan is gone from their lives forever? What if his mum is always like this? He looks at her now, face pinched, brows drawn, arms wrapped around herself, and tries to remember what her face looked like the other day at breakfast, when Vanessa accidentally spilled ketchup all over herself and his mum had laughed so much she had tears running down her face.

She’s seemed tall, recently. Still prickly, still impulsive and mean sometimes. Still forgets about him more times than she remembers. But she’s seemed like she’s more comfortable in her own skin. There have been no days where she’s just wallowed in bed without getting up. No days where she’s just disappeared with no word on where she’s going, stumbling back in drunk, or hiding after some scam. She’s seemed happy. As happy as he’s ever seen her. 

And he supposes she has been trying, kind of. So he didn’t get a big birthday party like Jacob, but she said she helped Vanessa with the cake, which he assumes means she licked the bowl. And she did get him a new phone, which was one of the things he asked for. 

She has been around more, especially since his suspension. 

“So I’m a terrible mother!” she’s saying, and he comes back out of his head and into the present. “What else is new? Everything that goes wrong in all of your lives is my fault, and I’m sorry, ok? I’m a screw up and I’ve screwed you all up and you’re better without me.” Her voice cracks and suddenly he can’t be here anymore, with the pain in her eyes and the tears gathering at the corners of her eyes.

“Noah!” he hears her cry after him as he storms out into the pub, but he blocks her out and keeps going, right out of the front door and down the main street. He doesn’t have the words to speak to her right now. They’ve never been good at speaking, him and his mum, unless one of them is angry at the other. 

He doesn’t have the words, right now, to explain what he’s cost her. What she’s missing.

He stumbles along the pavement, heart thumping and noise rushing in his ears.

And then Noah sees him. Just coming out of the shop like it’s his right to be here, in this village. Like he hasn’t done what he did to his mum, like she isn’t drinking herself unconscious every night while he’s swanning about like he owns the place.

He sees red.

_I’m a terrible mother_ echoes in his head.

_Joe left us, Noah! He’s gone, without even saying goodbye_ he hears.

_You got engaged without telling me. I’m always the last to know._

_This one only has two bedrooms but it would be perfect for us._

_Just tell the truth. You took the tranquilliser gun, didn’t you?_

“Shut up!” he shouts, but it doesn’t stop.

_I was living on the streets._

_I had to do what he wanted_

“Stop it!”

_Are you really telling the truth?_ He’d said to her. _I want to trust you, but I can’t._

“Argh!” he shouts, clutching his hands over his ears, but the words still bounce around inside of him. And then suddenly, his feet are moving, and he’s running towards Bails, who’s just turned into the side lane.

“Hey!” he shouts as he comes up behind him. “Hey!”

Bails turns around just as Noah barrels into him, sending the sandwich and the bottle of coke in his hands flying. 

“What are you-“ Bails starts, but Noah can hardly hear him over the voices still echoing around inside of him.

_You always lie to me,_ he’d said. 

_It’s me or him_ , he’d told her when he’d first found out about Ryan.

“I hate you!” He yells, shoving Bails hard. He’s still clearly surprised at what’s happening, because he stumbles a little.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” he shouts back at Noah. “Get off me!”

“You hurt her!” Noah cries, his voice cracking. “You disgusting, evil piece of shit.”

Bails narrows his eyes, and the corners of his mouth quirk. “Noah, right? One of Charity’s many brats?” He shakes his head a little. “I don’t know what your mum has told you, but she’s a liar, you know that right? She’s been to prison for lying. I bet she’s lied to you before. So whatever she’s told you, it’s not the truth.” He glances around, and then leans closer. “You know she was a prostitute, right? Hardly needed paying though, she was gagging for it-“

Noah has punched someone before, a couple of times. He’s been in fights at school, usually backing up one of his mates against the rival school, but it’s all been more for show, a lot more pushing and kicking.

But now he means it. He draws his fist back and smashes it forward hard, and it catches Bails right on the chin.

His hand immediately explodes in agony. He remembers, too late, what Cain told him about punching with the top two knuckles. It really, really hurts. 

But he feels oddly removed from the throbbing, from the bruise he can already feel forming. 

_I want to believe you._

_You’ve lied before._

_Did he make you have sex with him?_

He runs at Bails again, but this time, Bails is ready for him and shoves him to the ground, catching his fist mid-swing and twisting it around.

“You little shit!” he spits. “You think you can hit me and get away with it? I’m a police officer and your family is scum.”

“You hurt her!” Noah struggles against the hands keeping him to the ground. “You hurt her, you hurt her!” He kicks and he wriggles but he can’t get free. 

_Joe’s gone, Noah. He’s not coming back._

_Noah, I have to tell you something. Vanessa’s been hurt, and it’s bad._

_This one has two bedrooms._

_I hate you. All you ever do is lie to me._

“You hurt her!” Noah pushes up as hard as he can but he’s no match for the full weight of the man pressing down on him.

And then suddenly, the weight is off him and he sees Bails fall off to the side as someone barrels into them.

“What the hell are you doing?” he hears, and his eyes begin to sting because it’s _Vanessa_.

“That little shit attacked me!” Bails says, scrambling to his feet.

“He’s a child!” Vanessa says, sounding appalled. “Noah, love, are you alright?” She bends down and helps him sit up. 

Everything feels kind of fuzzy round the edges. Like he’s got on a pair of glasses for someone else’s prescription. The voices are still echoing around his head, and he’s shaking, he can’t stop shaking.

“Noah?” Vanessa’s voice echoes through but it’s faint and far away. 

“He hurt her,” he mumbles. There’s something cold and wet on his face, and it’s only when he reaches up to wipe it away that he realises he’s crying. 

Vanessa is shouting something, he thinks it might be at Bails, but he can’t seem to focus.

This is all his fault. He realises that now. His mum was doing better. She was happy. She had found Ryan. Bails was locked up. And he ruined it with that stupid wish. 

There’s a lot about Vanessa that he finds annoying but he hadn’t realised just what she’d done for his mum. What she’d done for all of them. He thinks of Chas, and of Grace’s room, and of Moses away in Liverpool. He thinks of the lopsided birthday cake and the way she leaves piles of clean laundry outside his room when she’s ‘respecting his privacy’, only to forget about that ten minutes later and barge in to tell him tea is ready.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and it comes out in a sob. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

She’s saying something to him, her hand warm on his back. He can’t understand it, the words are like gibberish in his mind. But when she pulls him to his feet, he lets her lead him away, away from Bails. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I’m so sorry.”

*** 

He jolts awake at the sound of his mum’s voice, and realises that somewhere between him sobbing on the sofa while Vanesa iced his swollen knuckles and her getting up to make him a cup of tea, he dosed off.

He keeps his eyes closed. He’s covered in a blanket, and it smells like home. Proper home, not this reality he created somehow. Vanessa switched their detergent because Johnny has sensitive skin, and all his clothes have started smelling like fresh meadow, or whatever the hell that stuff is called. It annoyed him, at the start. Another change. But now he breathes in deeply, trying to pretend that this means he’s back in his own reality, and not stuck here.

“He’s asleep,” he suddenly hears Vanessa say. “Once he calmed down he just crashed out.”

“What the hell happened?” 

Noah hides a smirk; his mum’s quiet voice is louder than most people’s shouting volume. Vanessa’s always saying that it’s no wonder Moses doesn’t know how to use his inside voice since his mum doesn’t seem to have a basic grasp of that either.

“He got into a fight with that policeman that’s friends with Tracy. You know, that Bails guy?”

There’s a pause, and Noah keeps his eyes squeezed shut, as his heart speeds up. 

“He what?”

“Don’t worry,” Vanessa says, “he seems ok. I put an ice pack on his hand and apart from a few bruises he should be alright.”

He hears movement, and sense his mum coming round the sofa to look at him.

“He was dead upset,” Vanessa whispers softly. “Kept going on about how sorry he was. How everything was his fault. Did you two have a fight or something”

There’s another pause, and Noah expects his mum to tell Vanessa to keep her nose out. But to his surprise, she doesn’t. Her voice sounds thick, like she’s got something stuck in her throat. “Yeah, we did.” She sighs. “I just don’t know what to do anymore. I just can’t get it right with any of my kids.”

Noah digs his fingernails into his palms, willing himself to keep quiet. Because this, his mum talking to Vanessa, is the first time he’s heard her have an actual conversation that wasn’t an argument since he woke up in this reality. 

“I was just making a brew, do you want one?”

Noah wills her to say yes, but his mum clears her throat. “No, you’re alright. I’d better get this one home.”

He hears her move close, and then suddenly there’s more movement close to him. 

“Charity,” Vanessa whispers, suddenly sounding more urgent. “Look, before you wake him…some of the things he was saying…”

“Spit it out!” His mum sounds suddenly on edge and defensive, like she’s readying herself to fight whatever Vanessa is saying.

Vanessa hesitates. “Is there a reason why I should tell Tracy to stop bringing that Bails guy to the pub?”

The silence stretches just a little too long before his mum says “What are you on about?”. 

“Charity,” Vanessa tries again, and she’s got that soft, patient voice on she often uses with his mum when she’s got herself worked up about something. “Look, I won’t push, ok? But it sounded like, maybe, there’s some history there? And I know your family has had a difficult year so if you want me to tell her to take him somewhere else, I will.”

His mum scoffs, but it’s fake and high pitched. Noah wonders if Vanessa can tell. 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she says, voice light and breezy. “I run a pub. Most of my punters annoy me at one time or another. Doesn’t mean then can’t come in.”

“Charity-“ Vanessa says, sounding concerned, but then Noah feels a hand on his shoulder.

“Noah!” His mum shakes him gently. “Noah.”

He opens his eyes and looks at her drawn face and sits up quickly, and throws his arms around her.

They haven’t hugged like this in ages. He gave her a quick hug on her birthday, and she hugged him on his, but he’d had his hands full of cake and had shrugged her off. 

She hasn’t hugged him at all since he’s been in this reality. Or ruffled his hair, or kissed his head, like she does most days.

And he can feel the surprise in her when he hugs her now, the way she breathes in sharply and pats his back hesitantly.

“I’m sorry,” he says again. “I’m so sorry, Mum.”

“It’s ok.” She rubs his back. “Hey, it’s all ok, alright?” She draws back and picks up his hand, hissing slightly when she sees his bruised knuckle. “Babe, what were you thinking?”

“Dunno.” He doesn’t know how to tell her, that he knows. How to explain it. 

His Mum sighs. “Let’s go home, ok? We’ll order some Indian.”

“With garlic naan?” Noah asks, and his mum lets out a small laugh.

“Is it even Indian without garlic naan?”

He gets up and awkwardly looks at Vanessa, who is trying to look like she’s not watching and listening but is failing miserably in the small space.

“Thanks,” he says, looking down at his shoes. “You know, for everything.”

“Don’t be daft,” she says, smiling that big smile of hers. “Anyone would’ve done the same.”

“Not for our family,” his mum says. She’s looking at Vanessa like she’s never seen her before. “Look, next time you drop by the pub, your pint’s on the house, yeah?”

Vanessa looks down and then back up again, her smile still firmly fixed on. “Well, I won’t say no to that.”

She walks them out and stands by the door as they slowly make their way down the street, and he catches his Mum glancing back at her a couple of times.

“She’s nice,” he blurts out. “Vanessa is, I mean.”

“Yeah,” his mum says distractedly. “She is.”

*** 

It’s not the same, by any means. They order the same food the two of them normally do, but Noah almost interrupts his mum on the phone to tell her she’d forgotten to order the korma and the bhajis before he remembers that they don’t need them.

They sit together, like they normally do with mum on the sofa and him on the chair, and for once his mum isn’t drinking, but she still looks tired and drawn. 

She asks him, of course, about what happened with Bails. But unlike normal-Mum would have, she just accepts his lie that Bails made some dig about their family which set him off.

_His_ mum would have seen right through that.

But it’s better than things had been the last couple of days. They watch a movie – an action one which Vanessa would have talked through but which they watch almost in total silence, and then he makes them a brew and his mum smiles at him. 

It’s not the same. But it’s better than the last couple of days. It’s manageable.

When they go to bed, his mum actually follows him up the stairs, and for the first time in days sleeps in her own bed.

Noah has a hard time getting to sleep. His head is all over the place after today, and his hand throbs.

But he can fix it. He has to. He just needs to figure out how.

*** 

He’s hanging out in the pub the next evening, eating some of Marlon’s carrot soup, watching his mum lounging behind the bar, when he sees her suddenly perk up, and he glances at the door and sees Vanessa and Tracy come in.

“Hiya,” Vanessa smiles, and Noah feels his eyes widen as his mum actually smiles back.

“Come for that pint, have you?” she asks, pulling out a glass. 

Vanessa grins. “Wanted to make use of that offer before it expires.”

His mum grins back, pulling the pint without looking away from Vanessa. 

“Can I have a glass of white, Charity?” Tracy asks, looking between them curiously.

“Sure.” But she’s still looking at Vanessa.

“So, erm, are things ok?” Vanessa asks, giving him a glance she must think is subtle. 

His mum gives a little sigh but she nods. “I think so, yeah.”

Tracy says “I’m going to get a seat, yeah?” but both Vanessa and his mum barely glance at her.

“Look,” Vanessa says softly, so quietly that Noah has to strain to hear her, “I know you said it didn’t matter, but I had a word with Tracy, and that Bails guy won’t be in here again.”

He sees his mum’s face freeze, sees the shutters come down over her eyes, but Vanessa keeps giving her that open smile she has. 

“And we don’t need to speak about it ever again if you don’t want to. And I also had a chat with Tracy and she spoke to him and he’s not going to press charges about Noah.” She takes her pint from his mum’s hand. “Thanks for this.” 

She walks over to Tracy, who’s sat not too far from Noah. His mum’s eyes follow her the whole way. She looks startled, like she can’t quite process what just happened, and he watches her pour herself a measure of whisky and take a sip. 

Noah can’t help it; he grins into his coke. Vanessa does that to his mum sometimes; just makes her completely speechless. 

Usually that’s followed by him hiding out in his bedroom wearing his noise cancelling headphones.

He’s just about to take his bowl into the kitchen when the door opens and a group of men enter. They’ve clearly already had a few, and they’re loud, swaggering in shoving and pushing each other. 

They order pints, and Noah notices that one of them is looking at Vanessa. 

When he looks round at her for the third time, Vanessa has sunk low on her chair and seems to be trying to hide.

“Alright?” the man shouts across the pub, and when Vanessa desperately tries to pretend she can’t see him, he walks over. “Oi!”

“Hi,” she says reluctantly.

“Remember me, love?” He bends down and winks.

“We’re actually having a conversation right now,” Vanessa says. Noah can see she’s gone pink.

“Do you know this guy, Vee?” Tracy crosses her arms and raises her eyebrows.

“Biblically,” the man drawls, leaning forward into Vanessa’s personal space.

“Look, no offence, but I just want to have a quiet pint.”

The man holds up his hands in an exaggerated show of surrender. “Chill out, love. Wasn’t asking for a repeat performance.” He bends down. “If I can give you some honest feedback, you were a bit of a cold fish anyway.”

Vanessa slams her pint down, face glowing red with humiliation. Noah suddenly realises his fists are clenched, stretching the tender skin on his right knuckles.

“That’s enough,” his mum says, coming half out from behind the bar. “Either order something or get out, but stop harassing my customers.”

The man turns to her. “And who are you, love?”

His mum puts her hands on her hips and rounds the bar. She has that fiery look in her eyes, the one she usually gets when she’s arguing with someone she’s not related to, and it’s the first time he’s seen her like this since he woke up in this world.

“I’m the owner. So what’s it going to be?”

The man rolls his eyes. “No one’s got a sense of humour anymore.”

He heads back to his friends and after some discussion they drain their pints and leave. 

Noah glances back at Vanessa, who has buried her head in her hands.

“Seriously, Vee? That guy?”

Vanessa stands up. “I don’t need this right now.”

“Come on Vee, I was just asking!”

“Yeah, well, you and Rhona have made your opinions perfectly clear.”

“We’re just worried about you.”

But Vanessa leaves her sitting there, and takes her half empty pint glass to the bar.

“Don’t fancy a pint after all?” his mum asks, leaning over the bar.

Vanessa sighs. “Not really in the mood anymore.”

His mum bites her lip for a second. “Fancy something a bit stronger?” She jerks her head towards the back. 

Vanessa looks probably as surprised as his mum does at the offer, but she smiles a little. “Sounds good.” She looks around. “But who’ll serve?”

His mum shrugs. “Matty’s about somewhere.”

Noah watches as Vanessa follows his mum and then scrambles to his feet. 

Because he suddenly and abruptly had a thought.

What if, _what if_ this is the thing that can make things go back to normal. 

He doesn’t really know what made Vanessa and his mum want to get together the first time, beyond alcohol and a room they couldn’t get out of, but he has a suspicion that those circumstances might not be in existence tonight.

He has to do something.

He heads to the back, pausing at the door. There’s the clinking of glasses and Vanessa sighs audibly. “God, I can’t believe I’m so pathetic that even you feel sorry for me.”

“Charming,” his mum replies. He can’t see them but he can picture the face she makes to that tone. “Try to do something nice for someone and this is what happens.”

Before they can mess this up, Noah quickly throws open the door.

“Oh, hi,” he says casually, like he’s surprised to find Vanessa there. 

“Hi Noah.” Vanessa smiles at him, and seeing her, sitting there on the sofa like she’s never left, makes his chest expand. 

He shuffles awkwardly, unsure of what to do. His mum is pouring large glasses of whisky over by the table and Vanessa is playing with the bottom of her jumper, and he’s pretty sure that’s not the start of any sort of love story.

“Erm, just wanted to say thanks again, for the other day.” The words are awkward in his mouth; he’s not good at this feelings stuff.

But Vanessa smiles at him shyly. “Don’t mention it. Just glad you’re alright.”

He nods, feeling his face go hot as he remembers the way he cried on her sofa, and the way she patted his shoulder and how good it felt.  
“I’m going to go upstairs,” he tells his mum, and she nods.

And then, on impulse, he walks over to her and gives her a hug, firm and quick. 

She stiffens in his embrace, but then returns it, and he feels the whisky bottle bump into him. 

“Night,” he mumbles and hurries out of the room, making sure to leave the door ajar so he can see in, and pretends to walk up the stairs before crouching behind the door. 

“Don’t suppose you saw our Noah get abducted by aliens and given a personality transplant?” his mum asks, and Vanessa laughs.

“What?”

“He’s just been really different these last couple of days,” his mum says pensively, handing Vanessa her glass. 

“Maybe he’s just growing up,” Vanessa says. “Look, I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings with what I said, I didn’t mean it the way it came out.”

His mum laughs, low and brittle. “Don’t worry about it. No one else does.”

“Doesn’t make it right,” Vanessa says softly. “I was just embarrassed about that guy.”

“You shouldn’t be,” his mum says firmly. “What you’re doing isn’t hurting anyone, so you should do what you like.”

Vanessa groans. “Tracy and Rhona think I should try going on an actual date.”

His mum turns her body to look at Vanessa next to her. “And you don’t want that?”

Vanessa shrugs. “I’ve been through lots of the guys on those apps, you know? And none of them I’ve thought, I’d like to see him again. And it’s not like I’m exactly an attractive prospect.”

“What?” His mum takes a drink. “What are you on about?”

Vanessa turns her body too. “Come on, Charity.” Her voice is especially broad, the way it gets when she’s exasperated. “I’m a single mum in her forties. Who’s going to want to date me?”

“Hey, both of that applies to me, so you might want to reconsider that.”

Vanessa laughs a little. “You know it’s not the same.”

“Why not?” 

“Because you’re Charity Dingle.” She takes a quick sip. “I mean…” She gestures at her.

Noah wrinkles his nose, disgusted and relieved. Still gay, then. But for some reason sleeping her way through the men of Yorkshire.

“And now I’m turning forty three this week, and the last long term relationship I had was with a teenager,” she groans. “There must be something wrong with me.”

His mum sighs, and then sits up and takes Vanessa’s glass out of her hand, putting both it and her own on the coffee table. 

“As entertaining as this pity party is, I can think of more fun things to do.”

“Sorry,” Vanessa sighs.

“Stop apologising,” his mum says. “Look, just…” She turns fully towards Vanessa. “You’re fit, and you’ve got a good job, and everyone likes you. You’re genuinely a nice person, and we don’t have many of those in the village. You have stuff going for you.”

Vanessa looks down, bashful. “That’s…I mean, thanks. But, you know, so do you.”

His mum snorts.

“I’m serious!” Vanessa’s voice gets louder as she’s more sure of herself. “You own this place. You’ve been through a lot and you still keep going. You’ve got great kids. And, I mean, you know…” She gestured at his mum’s face, and Noah throws up his hands in exasperation.

There’s a pause. “I want to try something,” his mum says, and her voice is low and throaty in a way that makes Noah very uncomfortable. “That ok?” She leans forward a bit, and Vanessa just nods as if hypnotised.

And then his mum leans forward and presses their mouths together, and Noah turns his face away, trying very hard not to hear the wet noises of the kiss.

It goes on for a long time, _much_ longer than Noah considers necessary. 

When they eventually come up for air, they stay sitting close together, foreheads almost touching, and his mum’s hand still curled around the back of Vanessa’s head.

“I happen to know the perfect way to celebrate turning forty three,” she husks. “Wanna come upstairs and find out?”

Vanessa nods and leans in again, and Noah decides that they obviously don’t need any further intervention, and he quickly slips up the stairs, taking care to skip the third step from the top which creaks, and hurries to his room and pulls on his headphones.

He doesn’t need to know or hear anything else. 

But there’s a huge grin on his face as he throws himself into his bean bag and reaches for his PS4 controller. 

Something is finally going back to normal. And maybe, even if this doesn’t fix everything, it’s at least a start to things getting better.

*** 

“Noah!”

He startles awake and winces at the crick that’s developed in his neck.

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you!” Vanessa says. She’s hovering over him, twisting her hands anxiously.

He sincerely hopes she’s not about to try and discuss what she and his mum got up to last night.

But then, he realises with a start he’s not in his bedroom. He’s in the cellar, on the chair.

He sits up so quickly his head spins a little. 

“I just wanted to apologise. Turns out Paddy took the tranquilliser gun out without signing it out.” Vanessa sighs and perches on the arm of the chair. “I’m really sorry I didn’t believe you.”

He’s back. They’re back! He can’t believe it. Somehow, he’s managed to fix things.

“Look, I know we haven’t really, you know, got on that well, but I want you to know I’d really like to change that, if you’d let me?” Vanessa looks a bit embarrassed but also determined. “Because your mum and I…well, I really, really love her. And I’m not going anywhere. So maybe we could both try a bit more?”

Noah looks at her. At her hair, scraped back and up. Hardly any makeup. A big woolly jumper. The glittering ring on her finger. 

His throat swells up and he moves almost without thinking. 

“It’s ok, about the tranq gun,” he mumbles, standing in front of her and shuffling his feet awkwardly. “I know what it must have looked like.”

“That’s no excuse,” Vanessa begins but he keeps talking .

“And I just wanted to say, you know…” He takes a deep breath, but after everything he’s seen he needs to tell her. “Thanks. For looking after mum.”

Vanessa’s eyes go wide with surprise. “I wasn’t expecting that,” she says. Her eyes look suspiciously shimmery. “And you know she looks after me too, right?”

“I know.” He does know that, now. Knew it before, really. He remembers vividly the way she helped Vanessa out of the car when they got back from the hospital, arm gently around her waist, half carrying her inside and to the sofa, where she tucked Vanessa in and spent the next two weeks hovering relentlessly. He’s never seen her like that.

“So, truce?” she asks, sticking out her hand.

He rolls his eyes at her fondly. She’s so ridiculous. “Truce.” He shakes her hand back, and it feels both oddly formal and absolutely not, and when they dissolve into giggles, he feels light for the first time in seemingly weeks.

“Fancy some of your birthday cake? I’ve been defending it from Paddy all afternoon.”

Noah nods. “Sounds perfect.” 

It really does.


End file.
